Will organizers lie about attendance by simply adding 5000 people to the previous year’s estimate as is their custom? We’ll just have to wait and see. Somebody will document the crowd overestimating, but I don’t know if it will be me this year…

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All the deets:

“Due to a scheduling conflict, the Walk for Life will be unable to follow its familiar route from Justin Herman Plaza and along San Francisco’s waterfront to Marina Green. Instead, we will be gathering at Civic Center Plaza at 11:00 am for the Info Fair to be followed by the rally at 12:30 pm. At 1:30 we will start walking down Market Street to Justin Herman Plaza. There will be no additional events at Justin Herman Plaza.

We are excited about this new opportunity and believe that this new venue will give us the chance to grow our numbers. More information to come so please sign up for our email blasts to keep informed of these important changes.

HOTEL UPDATE: We have sold out of the rooms at the San Francisco Marriott Fisherman’s Wharf Hotel. We were able to negotiate a discounted rate at the Kabuki Hotel in Japantown (very close to the Cathedral) for $139/night. For further options, gohere.

FLYERS: Color flyers are now availble for download. If you would like to receive copies of the flyers, please send us an email with your address and how many you would like. Help spread the word!

Maybe someday the liars over at Walk For Life West Coast will explain how a march that was only two-thirds the length of last year’s (48 minutes (or so) long in 2010 and 31 minutes long in 2011*) could have 5000 more people.

It’s a miracle!?

It’s worth noting that nobody had a crowd estimate of less than 22K last year and nobody independent from the movement has a an estimate north of 20k this year. I put it at 16k and KGO 7 ABC TV is saying “about 20,000.” The organizers, under enormous pressure to claim ever growing attendance, claim 40,000+. Oh well.

Anyway, here are a few shots from this afternoon, starting with the counters.

The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence were on hand. I’d say 5000 souls saw this sister and a fellow sister today – they were the focus of the march, particularly on the right side of the river of people going by. Here’s your welcome to San Francisco:

The mise-en-scene:

Tax Church Property and INVESTMENTS! Sure, sounds good to me.

And here’s Frank Chu, in the middle, going on about the Galaxies, as per usual:

And here’s the main body, 16k or so marchers from all over California and beyond:

*We’re talking about at the start here, people. Ferry Plaza was a ghost town by 12:33 PM. If the same number of people showed up as last year, it would have taken until about 12:50 PM for everybody to get going. Obviously, the march will spread out over time and narrow due to the way the course is set up.

How about 16,000 for an estimate of those marching up Embarcadero from the Ferry Building / Justin Herman Plaza area? So, that would be less than half of the officially estimated and very optimistic 35,000 count from last year, or, comparing apples to apples, about two-thirds of last year’s attendance, which was in the 22k, 23k, 24k neighborhood.

Will organizers tell the truth and say that their numbers are down year-over-year or will they simply lie? [UPDATE – KGO 7 ABC TV is saying about 20,000 and as for what the organizers are saying, see below]

As it looked at the start at around 12:02 PM, Saturday, January 22nd, 2011 CE. The much smaller counterprotesting pro-choice march went up Herb Caen Way in parallel – they were gone in 160 seconds or so.

Now, how could it be that a march that took three-quarters of an hour (more or less) to pass by Embarcadero and Broadway in 2010 is smaller than today’s, one that took a half-hour (more or less) to pass by Embarcadero and Broadway?

Saying that there were about 40,000 people marching today isn’t spin, it’s a sin. Appears as if organizer Dolores Meehan is a big fat liar. She might not be aware of the actual numbers precisely, but she’s got to know that the size of the crowd is waaaaaay down this year. What would she say next year if the parade only takes 15 minutes to get out of Ferry Plaza? She’d say 45,000, natch.

I mean, is that cool? Exaggerate more and more each year until nobody believes you? Is that how you roll?

“Record-breaking Turnout for Walk for Life West Coast in San Francisco

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 22, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — Tens of thousands of pro-life activists filled Justin Herman Plaza in San Francisco’s downtown and then walked 2.5 miles along the waterfront in a record-breaking turnout for the 7th Annual Walk for Life West Coast.

“We are here to break the bondage of the culture of death,” Walk for Life co-chair Dolores Meehan told the crowd that stretched as far as the eye could see.

“If we care for the baby, we have to care for the mother and father,” said speaker Kathleen Eaton, who funded Birth Choice Clinics in Orange County after her own abortion.

The Walk was held on the 38th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion.

“Today on January 22nd, I do not honor choice any more, I mourn choice,” said former Planned Parenthood clinic director Abby Johnson, who walked away from her job at a Texas Planned Parenthood clinic on October 6, 2009, after assisting in an ultrasound-guided abortion of a 13-week-old fetus. “You are the new generation of the pro-life movement and I can tell you Planned Parenthood is shaking in their boots.”

“Nothing is too big for God to forgive,” said Mary Poirer, who told the story of her three abortions.

Rev. Brian Walker, who, with his wife Denise, chose to abort their child four months before their wedding, said he deserted his wife when she needed him. “Many years ago there was not a man in the house, there was a male in the house, but there was not a man in the house,” said Walker. “Everybody suffers in the wake of abortion.”

“We’ve lost close to 40 percent of our population to abortion,” said Rev. Denise Walker, founder of Everlasting Light Ministries, referring to the high rate of African American abortions. “We must end this slaughter.”

A densely packed crowd of least 40,000 walked 20 across in a line that stretched over a mile. The Walk route started at Justin Herman Plaza in downtown San Francisco and concluded at Marina Green in sight of Golden Gate Bridge.

Founded in 2005 by a group of San Francisco Bay Area residents, the Walk for Life West Coast’s mission is to change the perceptions of a society that thinks abortion is the answer.